


Stone and Blood

by EmLeeKoe



Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Books, Dehydration, Deutsch, Gen, German, Guards, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Injury, Isolation, Library, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prison, Soldiers, Starvation, Torture, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23298118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmLeeKoe/pseuds/EmLeeKoe
Summary: What happened to Thomas in prison? How did he turn from the bright, optimistic young man he was into the man they found in the cell under the Basilica Julia?This canon gap filler explores those questions, and the aftermath of such a traumatic experience.A glossary of the German words and phrases can be found here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23346220
Comments: 22
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 'Ephemera
> 
> Excerpt from a report delivered via secure message to the Archivist Magister from the hand of the Artifex:
> 
> I thought you were being soft when you ordered us to keep the boy alive, but he's been incredibly useful already. As you said, a brilliant mind. When we allow him access to books and papers, which we do as a reward, his observations on engineering are quite groundbreaking. After compelling him using the usual means, we provided him with chalk, and on the walls of his cell, he began to write some unusual calculations and diagrams. These I have enclosed for your review. He has also had observations, which he confided in a guard I had ordered to be friendly to him, about the maintenance of the automata within the prison. Clever boy, and dangerous. He might've succeeded in turning one of them to his own uses if we hadn't kept a constant watch.  
> I know you want to keep him alive, but even after this long, he continues to be outwardly cooperative and inwardly quite stubborn. I haven't seen the like since, well, since his mentor, Scholar Christopher Wolfe. As bright as he is, I don't know how we can ever control him completely. It would be far kinder to kill him now.
> 
> Reply from the Archivist Magister, via secure message:
> 
> Under no circumstances are you to kill the boy. I have great plans for him.'
> 
> -from Paper and Fire by Rachel Caine

** THOMAS **

_The prison under the Basilica Julia_

The second time they came for him, he was asleep. He was asleep, just like he’d been when they’d hurt him and taken him from his room in the High Garda quarters. He was asleep, for the first time since he’d awoken in the carriage, concussed and cuffed hand and foot with restraints that bit sharply into his skin the more he struggled, until rivulets of blood slicked his skin.

They’d brought him to the Artifex, who’d asked him a thousand questions about the press printer he’d invented, grilling him until his head spun. He’d done his best to make up lies that wouldn’t incriminate his friends, but he wasn’t wired for dishonesty, and could tell the Artifex didn’t believe him. Then they’d brought him here, to the prison, where he’d been searched none too gently and ordered to change into an ill-fitting, stained white linen outfit.

Now he was asleep, on the rough, chilly floor of a cell, the stones dusty and soaked with dried sweat and other things he didn’t wanted to think about, things that stained the porous stone a dark, frightening color and made the cell smell like death. He was asleep, and even in his dreams, he was hungry, starving, searching for something to put in his deflated stomach, or even just a drop of water to soothe his parched tongue.

It was a rude awakening; the High Garda soldiers jerked him out of his dreams and into harsh, cold reality, where his head ached like nothing he’d ever felt, and he was just as ready to vomit as he was to inhale any scrap of food he might see.

The halls of the prison were kept dimly lit with a flickering orange glow by braziers of coals that were always kept burning, the heat too weak to even hint at warming Thomas’s cold fingertips when he stretched his arm out between the bars, toward the light. There were no windows.

“Where are we going?” he asked as they forcefully bound his hands behind his back again; the sharp bite of the cuffs against the already torn flesh of his wrists turned his stomach. “Are you letting me go?”

Jess would have told him he was being too optimistic. Jess would have said he needed to look around and make a plan—a plan to escape, or at least to get a weapon that could help him later.

So he tried, but the halls were bare save for the braziers firmly bolted to the stone, which all seemed solid—if any of it had been crumbling, he could have perhaps pried out a rock to bash heads with, but the architecture was well maintained, even if the cells were never cleaned.

“Shut up,” said the soldier on his left, smacking him over the back of his head. It wouldn’t have hurt much if that hadn’t been where they’d hit him when they’d taken him, but between the blow to his already throbbing wound, the incredible hunger, and the dehydration, he almost went to his knees.

“At least tell me we’re going to get something to eat,” he managed to say good-naturedly when he’d recovered somewhat.

“Oh, you’ll get food, don’t worry,” said the one on his right.

“Wonderful!” He forced a smile. “Now we’re getting somewhere. My name is Thomas Schreiber, which I’m sure you already know. What are yours, please?”

“Shut up,” said the one who’d smacked him earlier, and he flinched, waiting for another blow, but this time it didn’t come, because they’d arrived at a door.

The Garda on his right gripped his arm tighter, hard fingers jabbing into his bicep like claws, as the other let go to fish a ring of keys from his pocket and unlock the door.

 _Maybe,_ he thought, _maybe we’re going to talk to the Archivist. Maybe I can talk him into letting me go. I can pretend I’ll work for him, I’ll tell him I can improve the automata, even build him his own press printer if he wants. There has to be some way. What would Jess—_

His thoughts were cut off by the sight of the large, round room beyond the door. There was no other exit, just two more High Garda waiting inside, amid contraptions that his engineer’s eyes understood within half a second, though he didn’t want to be correct about any of them.

“What is this?” he asked as the door slammed shut and locked behind him.

The Garda didn’t speak as the two who’d been waiting in the room came to take hold of his arms and pull him toward a table with shackles bolted to it.

“Stop,” he said, backing away, too upset to care about the slight embarrassment of his voice cracking. “Wait, I—”

One of the Garda punched him in the stomach, lightning fast, and he doubled over, retching and fighting to inhale.

The cuffs were unlocked just in time for him to catch himself as he fell to the floor, and finally, when he could breathe again, he looked up at the soldier. A new feeling began to course through him, an unpleasant, searing feeling that made his muscles tense and his blood boil. It wasn’t fear; he’d felt fear many times, and he’d never felt this before, not to this extent.

Finally, he identified it as pure, unadulterated rage. How _dare_ they take him? How _dare_ they treat him this way? What had he ever done to deserve this?

Without planning to do so, he jumped to his feet, his broad fists clenched, and leapt for the Garda in front of him.

The man sidestepped his lunge, and Thomas cursed his size; if he were small like Jess, he could move quicker, less predictably.

He only had a moment to lament, however, because before he could steady himself from the failed attack, something hit him hard on the back and he fell flat on the floor, gasping. Every breath was like another punch to the stomach, another club to the spine.

“Learned your lesson yet?” asked one of the soldiers. “You’ll behave, you’ll answer our questions, or you’ll hurt.”

“You’ll hurt anyway,” chuckled another one.

“ _Scheiße_ ,” Thomas muttered, pushing himself up. “Fine,” he said louder, steadying himself against the evil-looking table; he realized what he was touching and yanked his hand away as soon as the ground had somewhat steadied under him. “Tell me what you want from me.”

The soldier who had hit him smiled, twirling his club, and stepped closer.

*****

Nothing was real as they hauled him back to his cell. The halls swirled into darkness, the floor wobbled beneath his dragging feet, and the cuffs were so, so tight on his throbbing wrists. It took three of them to get him back, because he was bigger than any of them and couldn’t stand on his own.

He found himself falling to the floor of his cell, hands unbound, with no recollection of the trip there, and he gasped in pain, then coughed when the air irritated his throat, raw from screaming.

“For your troubles,” said one of the soldiers, and he barely perceived something landing on the floor of his cell, then rolling to the far wall. There was a _clunk_ behind him, as of something being put on the floor; the bars swung shut and locked, and he pushed himself up on shaking limbs to sit against the wall, then once the pounding in his head died down enough, he looked around to find what had been tossed into his cell.

A small loaf of crusty bread lay upended near the back wall, and before he realized he was moving, it was in his giant hands. It was the size of one of his fists, and it was hard and dry, but it was the first food he’d seen since being brought here, and he inhaled it, choking on the dry crumbs and ignoring his stomach’s protests.

He remembered the _clunk_ and turned to see a small pail of water by the door; again, he had no recollection of moving to it, he just knew that one moment he’d seen it on the other end of the cell, and the next, he’d drained half of it.

When the water and bread were both gone, the edge taken off his hunger and thirst even though neither were sated, an incredible weakness came over him, and every one of his wounds seemed to scream anew. His stomach bubbled, threatening to expel the bread and water he’d forced into it. His own shouts still echoed in his ears, his mind spun with the unfairness of it all, and underneath the fear, the pain, the frustration, simmered that pure, unbridled rage. It grew hotter and hotter until the pot boiled over, and he roared, throwing the water pail against the far wall of his cell, then leaned back against the wall and shut his eyes, feeling twin tears slip out and run down the sides of his face.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas dreams of better days, learns his friends are all dead, and has nowhere to run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI: There's descriptions of major character death because Thomas said, when they rescued him from the prison, that they'd described how all his friends had died. But they're obviously not really dead - that's why I didn't use the major character death warning.

The third time they came for him, he was asleep, dreaming of his friends, of the happier times when they’d all been postulants together in Alexandria, and he’d had enough to eat, a comfortable bed, and as many books as he could ever want to read.

The _snick_ of the lock disengaging and the iron-on-stone scrape of the barred cell gate opening awoke him, and for a moment, he struggled to remember where he was.

It came back to him all too soon, and immediately his heart leapt into overdrive as the two Garda soldiers entered his cell, one holding a pair of cuffs.

“Wakey wakey, you great lump,” he said, and stepped forward.

Thomas jumped to his feet, ignoring the wave of dizziness that washed over him, took a long, quick step forward, and shot out a hard, meaty fist toward the soldier, faster than he could dodge.

When his fist smacked his cheekbone, the soldier’s head snapped back, his eyes rolled up in his head, and he crumpled to the floor.

“You’re not taking me again,” he growled, and then, strangely, wasn’t sure whether he’d said it in English or German.

“You’ll pay for that!” the other one exclaimed as Thomas steadied himself against the wall, shaking out his fist.

He glanced up and blinked through the wooziness that blurred his vision to see a gun pointed at him.

“ _Scheiße_ ,” he muttered, and raised his hands. He didn’t want to die. His friends—

The soldier fired.

For a moment, Thomas thought that he’d been shot, that he was about to bleed out on the floor and die.

Then he blinked, realized his cheek was pressed against the stained stones near the boot of the Garda he’d punched, and when he could breathe again, the sharp, pounding ache in his abdomen just above his kidney felt like a knife twisting. He reached a trembling hand to feel for a wound, to test for blood, but there was none, which confused him for a moment until he realized the weapon had been set to stun, not kill.

More Garda were pouring into his cell, he realized, rolling him onto his stomach, cuffing his hands behind him, hauling him up none too gently. Someone yelled. It might have been him.

“My friends,” he gasped when he’d gotten his weak-kneed legs under him. “My friends will come.” He knew it wasn’t true. He knew they had no way of knowing where he was, or even who had taken him. But he had to say it anyway, had to at least _try_ to hold onto what hope he could.

“Your friends are all dead,” said one of them, and he was too blinded by pain and fear to know which direction it came from. “The girl in the veil, she got knifed between the ribs by a Burner. Wolf and Santi were killed trying to get revenge. Greek fire.”

“No!” He wasn’t sure whether his voice had worked.

“The pretty Spaniard boy, he ran to save his own ass,” the voice continued as they dragged him back down the hall, back toward that door, that horrible round room, “and took a bullet in the head from behind. Then that big manly girl, she took—how many? Four bullets? Four or five, before she finally went down.” They’d reached the door, and someone unlocked it.

“Stop,” he whispered as they hauled him inside. Each word hurt like a blow to his chest.

“The young Obscurist died trying to save the book smuggler—Brightwell, was it?” There was a chuckle. “Greek fire got him. Still remember him screaming while the flesh melted right off him. Died in the street, he did, screaming like a—”

Thomas yanked himself away, struggling against the cuffs, trying to pull free, to hit, to make him _stop_ , but the cuffs just bit harder into his wrists, and he felt the scabs crack, hot drops of blood slicking his fingertips again. “Stop!” he shouted. “ _Aufhören,_ _arschloch!_ You _lie!_ ”

“Oh no, you big oaf,” said a Garda with a black goatee, thin mustache, and deep, horrible eyes, “No, you’re the last one. That’s the truth.” A grin crawled over his face.

The grief bubbled up inside him and he struggled to contain it. “Why? _Why?_ ” He didn’t just mean to ask why his friends had been killed; he meant it for _everything_. Why was he here? Why were they hurting him? What was the purpose of all this, and who stood to gain? How could they stomach this, any of this, and yet smile in his face? What kind of monsters must they be?

The Garda stepped forward, and Thomas backed away. “ _Nein_ ,” he whispered as the light of the Glows glinted off the highly polished club. “ _Bitte._ ”

“Perhaps today we can convince you to tell the truth,” said the one with the club, smiling wickedly.

“ _Sie haben nirgendwo zu laufen_ ,” added one of the Garda he didn’t recognize, and chuckled; it took Thomas a moment to realize he was speaking his native language, and somehow that hit him like a blow to the chest, that one of his own countrymen would be in on this.

The German Garda was right, though.

Thomas had nowhere to run.

*****

When he opened bleary eyes, the lashes of his left caked with drying blood, and saw his cell, at first he didn’t recognize it as his. This, he realized, was because of the new addition of shackles bolted to the wall.

“What’s this?” he murmured past a swollen bottom lip, and tasted blood from where it had split.

The guards shoved him inside, and he fell to the floor for what seemed the hundredth time since he’d been brought to the stinking prison. He was too weak to get up and fight, hurting too badly to care as cold metal cuffs clinked shut around his ankles. _Ich habe nirgendwo zu laufen_ , he thought. _Keine Möglichkeit zu entkommen. No way to escape._

The shackles bound his ankles together, and they were attached to an iron fixture in the wall by a short, thick chain. There would be no removing these without keys or tools, and standing up on his own would be difficult, if not impossible.

He blinked, or thought he blinked, but when his vision adjusted, the Garda had all disappeared, leaving another bread loaf and pail of water by the door, so he guessed it might have been slightly longer than a blink, perhaps a short faint. It would make sense considering the state he was in, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. His friends were all dead.

He slowly moved toward the cell door, every part of his body aching or throbbing or cramping, until he could reach the bread and water, which he ate and drank in seconds flat before retreating to the back of the cell, where he curled up in the corner, against the chilled stone walls. Even though he knew it was stupid, he felt safer when he was further from the door, further from the reach of the soldiers.

He was famished, thirsty, and so exhausted, but if he slept, they would come for him. They always came when he was asleep.

So he stared at the bloodstained stones before him, breathing shallowly to spare his bruised ribs; he began to shake, and couldn’t stop.

*****

The fourth time they came for him, he’d passed out against the cell wall; he had no idea how much time had gone by, but the unconsciousness had afforded him no real rest. He was too tired, as they cuffed his hands behind him, then undid the shackles on his ankles, to do anything except dissolve into sobs.

“ _Bitte_ ,” he begged, but couldn’t find any words, in German or English, to follow up his plea. “ _Bitte_.”

The Garda ignored him as they dragged him from the cell, and the long hallway stretched before him again, but this time it was blurred by tears.

They reached the end of it far too quickly.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of the guards, under orders from the Artifex, befriends Thomas. Thomas thinks briefly about suicide.

“Hey. You.”

Thomas thought the voice was in his fragmented dreams at first, but then something hit his cheek, and his eyes fluttered open; he found the side of his face pressed to the stones, and struggled to make out the object that had bounced off his cheek and landed a few inches from his nose. Focusing his vision made his head ache ten times worse, but finally he realized it was a piece of chalk.

“ _Hallo? Deutscher Mann?_ _Ist jemand zu hause?_ ” Something moved beyond the piece of chalk, and Thomas blinked, trying to focus on it.

It was one of the Garda, the one who’d spoken German to him in the torture room. He crouched just inside the open cell door, and he was alone.

He pushed himself up on shaking limbs and scrambled back against the wall. “Leave me _alleine_ ,” he said, the words dry and hoarse through his parched, raw throat. He was so thirsty, so hungry, he wondered whether he would die from starvation or dehydration before the Garda torture masters could kill him.

“Pick a language, brother,” said the soldier with a smirk. “We can speak English, or we can speak German. It’s confusing switching back and forth.”

“I am not your brother,” Thomas growled, his weak, shaking hands curling into fists streaked with dried blood. He refused to speak the language of his home, his family, with the psychopath before him.

“Fine. But here, I brought you a gift,” he said, and pulled a few more sticks of white chalk from one pocket.

“Wonderful,” he said. “Though I’ve been out of primary school for a good while now.”

“And you have no use for writing, _Schreiber?_ ” the man said. He was nowhere near as big or broad-shouldered as Thomas, but he looked strong, too strong for Thomas to vanquish in his weakened, injured state, let alone with his legs shackled. His hair was light brown, streaked with blond, and his gray eyes were kind, too kind for someone who took delight in torturing the innocent.

“I don’t suppose you’ve brought me paper?” he grumbled, crossing his arms, then biting back a wince and uncrossing them as the pressure on his ribs caused a sharp pain that took his breath.

“Look around you.” The man gestured to the cell. “What purpose do these walls serve besides to act as a blank canvas?”

“You’re too kind.” He’d meant it sarcastically, but was too tired to inject venom into his words.

“Oh, also.” He dug in his other pocket and pulled out something wrapped in paper. “Nabbed this from the mess hall.” He tossed it over, and Thomas flinched badly; it fell on his lap, and he carefully reached to pick it up.

“What is it?”

“Oh, just unwrap it. It won’t hurt you.”

Thomas shot a glare at the man that probably hurt his own head more than the man’s feelings, and unwrapped the paper.

As he did, a heavenly smell wafted up from it, and he almost fainted when he saw two semicircular, flaky, golden brown pastries, one glazed in a sweet icing, the other sprinkled with herbs and spices.

If he hadn’t been so dehydrated, Thomas’s mouth would have watered. He grabbed the savory pastry and raised it to his open mouth, then froze and looked at the man.

“Is it poisoned?”

“Why would I go to the trouble?” he asked. “Anyway, if it is, you can have a full stomach while you die. What have you got to lose, _Dummkopf?_ ”

Thomas narrowed his eyes at the man, then wolfed down both large pastries. His good sense told him to take his time and eat them slowly, but it was impossible.

“Here.” The man moved one side of his coat back, and Thomas stiffened, pressing himself back against the wall, expecting a gun.

The man held out one hand, palm down. “It’s alright,” he said, and took a canteen from his belt. He moved closer to Thomas and held it out.

Thomas took it, unscrewed the cap with unsteady fingers, and tipped it back.

Cool, fresh water washed over his tongue and down his throat, and he drank so eagerly that he managed to inhale a few drops, and coughed and spluttered until black spots crowded his vision and his ribs felt made of glass shards.

“Slowly, now,” said the other man, and Thomas nodded, caught his breath, then finished the water and handed the canteen back to the man.

“Why are you helping me?” he asked.

“Come now, Thomas, not _all_ the High Garda are bastards,” he replied, shifting from his crouch to sit on the stone floor with his knees bent, arms resting atop them, hands dangling loose over his feet. “Some of us can’t help where we’re stationed.”

“But you—” Thomas could think a little clearer now, with food and water in his stomach, but he still couldn’t find the words to remind the man what an ass he’d been. What he’d assisted with in the torture room.

“I know,” he said as if he’d read Thomas’s mind. “I can’t exactly afford to not fit in. What do you think they would do to me if they thought I was a traitor?”

Thomas had no answer for that, so he was silent for several moments, then asked, “What is your name?”

“Arthur,” he said, rising to his knees and holding out his right hand. “Arthur Enttäuschen.”

Warily, Thomas shook it, then picked up a piece of chalk and turned it over and over in his hand, mentally taking apart the automaton lions, rewiring them, rebuilding them, making them into friends. Awkwardly he turned onto his knees, movement limited by the short chain of his shackles, and began to draw on the stone wall, a bit of his usual energy and zeal restored.

Arthur left, locking the cell door behind him, and Thomas drew up his plans until he could no longer grip the chalk, could no longer hold himself up. He sat in the corner again, leaning on the wall, and refused to sleep. Sleep was when they came for him. Perhaps, he thought rather irrationally, if he didn’t sleep, they wouldn’t come.

*****

They came. Time had lost all meaning until he hadn’t been able to keep his eyes open any longer, and the next thing he knew, iron scraped over stone, voices flooded his cell, and he was being yanked to his feet again. He didn’t have the energy to fight them; he just let them drag him down the hall and into the room at the end, crying silently and wishing it all over.

Back in his cell, after eating the bread and drinking the water, he stood, balancing against the wall, head heavy and spinning, and lost himself in his plans again to avoid thinking about his friends, about how very little hope was left in the world. It didn’t work; he had to blink away tears that threatened every few seconds. Soon, the white scribbles covered half the wall, and soon after that, his knees buckled and he went down. He was tired, so tired, and he wondered how long he was actually sleeping when he did. Was this still the same day he’d been brought here? Time had no meaning anymore, not in this place.

He rubbed a bruise on his jaw and realized he’d grown stubble. More than stubble, really, but not quite a beard. Scruff, was that what they called it? He wasn’t sure, but at least it helped him to measure time. It had to have been at least five days.

Five days, but it had felt like a year. How much longer could he endure this?

Without really meaning to, he examined the bars of his cell, noting the crossbar just below the ceiling, and thought he could fashion a noose out of his clothing and—

He shook his head hard, which proved to be a mistake as everything began to swim and the ever-present headache raged anew. _No_ , he told himself. _Not that. Never that_. But somehow, it was a comfort that he might have an escape of a sort, if it came to that.

He pulled his knees up close to his chest and curled against the wall, keeping his eyes open as long as he could.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas has sleep paralysis and hallucinations. The guard ordered to be friendly to him gives him a Blank.

When he awoke, he couldn’t move.

He lay flat on his back, staring at the cell doors, and he couldn’t _move_.

Then the cell door opened, and Jess Brightwell ran in to kneel beside him.

“Thomas,” he said, “Thomas, it’s so good to see you.”

 _Jess_ , he thought but couldn’t say, and he began to panic. What was _wrong_ with him? Why couldn’t he move?

Behind Jess, Glain, Dario, Khalila, Scholar Wolf, and Captain Santi flooded in, all staring down at him.

“We’re going to get you out,” said Jess.

 _Jess, I can’t move_. _Help me!_

Then the cell door opened—hadn’t it already been open? —and the images of his friends vanished like clouds of smoke in a strong breeze as the High Garda soldiers crowded in.

“Jess?” he said, and found that he could speak, he could move again. He sat up, wincing at the strain on his bruised abdomen and ribs, and looked at the soldiers. “Jess,” he repeated, trying to see past them, his chest burning, his heart sinking fast, like a boat drenched in Greek fire. “ _Jess!_ ”

“Didn’t expect you to break so quickly,” said the guard with the evil eyes behind him, laying a hand on his back to shove him forward, and yanking his arms behind him to cuff his wrists.

Sleep paralysis, that was all it had been: a vivid hallucination upon first waking. He’d had a friend back home who told stories of the demons and killers she saw standing over her when she awoke, how when this happened, she was paralyzed, sometimes for minutes at a time, and how terrifying it was.

He hadn’t quite believed her; hadn’t realized how _real_ the hallucinations could be.

The hallway blurred beyond recognition as it hit him all over again that Jess was dead, that all his friends were dead, that there was no one left to save him.

*****

When they dragged him out of the round room and back toward his cell, he barely managed to lift his head enough to gaze down the hall, but when he did, his heart jumped into his throat.

Jess was there, a finger over his lips as if to tell him not to react, not to betray his presence.

He blinked.

Jess was gone.

 _Hiding_ , he thought. _He’s hiding, but he will come pick the locks and let me out. He’s a thief, and I’m his target._ But instead of hope rising within him, there was black terror. Jess wasn’t really there. He was losing his mind.

The guards didn’t need to shove him to the ground to make him fall; he couldn’t hold himself up. Thy shackled him, left the meager loaf and the pail of water, and disappeared.

“This is the worst bread I’ve ever tasted,” said Jess, and Thomas looked up to see Jess tearing bite-sized chunks from his loaf and tossing them into his mouth one by one. Thomas said nothing; if his friend was hungry, he deserved to eat.

Jess looked at him and shook his head, concern in his eyes. “No, Thomas. Not if you’re starving.” He held the remainder of the loaf out toward him, and Thomas reached for it, but his hand closed on air, and Jess was gone. The loaf was on the floor where it had been dropped, and Thomas was alone.

He heard a slightly hysterical laugh, and then realized it’d come from him; he dragged himself to the bread and water and forced it down, though he was so hungry that the sight of food turned his stomach.

When he’d finished, he moved slowly and painfully back to his corner.

“Sleep,” said Jess, standing at the door. “I’ll stand watch.” He smiled.

Thomas couldn’t stop shaking.

*****

The seventh time they came for him, he was asleep; when he awoke, he retreated deep inside himself at the sight of their High Garda robes. They cuffed him, but he didn’t feel it; they unlocked his shackles, and he didn’t feel them fall away. They hauled him to his feet and pulled him down the corridor, and he didn’t fight.

Jess watched them question him, hurt him, tears in his eyes, and didn’t do anything.

Of course he didn’t. He was dead.

*****

“Got a present for you,” said Arthur, slipping his arm between the bars of the cell and holding something out toward Thomas.

He almost didn’t believe his eyes.

“A Blank?” he asked.

“You’re to be allowed access to books and papers from a curated list,” Arthur explained. “For good behavior. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll have it mirrored for you.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “You finally started giving real answers. And the Artifex likes your brain. He’d rather not lose it entirely.”

“Maybe he should let me out of here, then.” The boiling rage bubbled up inside him; he swallowed it down with effort, clenching his fists, and focused on the relief of being able to read again.

Arthur smiled sadly. “Yeah, well, that’s just not what he does with people who have minds as dangerous as yours.”

“I thought he liked it.”

“Oh, he does,” Arthur replied. “All the more reason to keep it under lock and key.”

Thomas’s fists clenched, and he narrowed his eyes at the other German.

“His words,” said Arthur, holding his hands up in surrender. “Not mine. Aren’t you going to thank me?”

Thomas sighed. “ _Danke_ ,” he muttered, and it came out almost in a growl.

“ _Gern geschehen_ ,” Arthur replied with a smug smile.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas hallucinates some more and thinks about suicide, then his friends finally come for him.

“Don’t they ever give you anything else to eat in here?” Jess asked, sitting at his leisure nearby as Thomas inhaled the bread and water.

“No,” he said. “I try to be grateful for what I get, but—”

“Don’t,” said Jess. “This is no way to treat a human being. God, I wish—”

“Don’t say it, Jess. Please. I can’t bear it.” Thomas finished his bread, then drained the pail of water. “ _Scheiße,_ I’m so tired.”

“Sleep,” said Jess. “I’ll stand watch.”

“You can’t,” he said, and couldn’t hold back a laugh. “You’re dead.” He kept laughing, even though he was terrified. He was losing control. “You’re dead, you’re gone, and so are all the others, and I’m slowly dying in here.” He wiped hysterical tears from his eyes, then looked up to the iron crossbar above the cell door again. Could he reach it with his ankles shackled? Maybe just well enough to tie a makeshift noose to it.

“Don’t,” said Jess.

“Why not?” Thomas realized he was trembling badly, and each quake sent a fresh shock of pain through him. “What else is there for me?”

When Jess didn’t answer, he turned toward him. “Jess?”

He was gone.

Thomas was alone again.

He cried himself to sleep.

*****

The twenty-eighth time they came for him, he was asleep.

*****

The plans he was drawing up on the wall were Thomas’s only escape, his only reason to wake up, his only reason to hang desperately onto what shreds of his sanity were left, but as time went on, Arthur came less and less. Thomas understood; it was dangerous for him. But he wished desperately, as his supply dwindled, for more chalk. Anything to fill the long, lonely, countless hours between torture and sleep. His hope had drained away through the cold stone floor, and he wondered whether there was a way to end it all. There was nothing left for him.

“Hang on,” Jess said. “Just hang on.”

*****

The thirty-fourth time they came for him, he was asleep.

*****

The seventy-ninth time they came for him, he was asleep.

*****

The ninety-first time they came for him, he was asleep, and when they dragged him, bruised and bloody, back to his cell, shackling his ankles and removing the cuffs from his wrists yet again, he leaned back against the wall, watched them leave, then studied his jagged fingernails. He decided which ones would be best to use as knives, and examined the blue veins in his wrists that stood out starkly from dehydration.

“Don’t do it, Thomas,” said Jess from beside him. “Please.”

“I can’t do this anymore,” he replied, voice a soft croak, and there were no more words to be said.

Jess turned away, face in his hands.

Then he heard something from the corridor. The scrape of boots on stone, voices whispering, fabric rustling.

Were they coming to fetch him again? They’d only just brought him back. _Scheiße,_ he couldn’t handle another session in the round room, not so soon. His chest locked up tightly, burning with the speed of his pulse, and he couldn’t calm his rapid breathing once it had begun. _Bitte,_ he thought, hugging himself and squeezing his eyes shut. _Please, please, please…_

The voices were just outside his cell, and he began to shake again, but he forced his eyes open.

There was Jess.

“Jess,” he said, though he didn’t quite believe it.

Jess was bleeding from his head, but he smiled as he grabbed the bars. “Got yourself in a mess, haven’t you, Thomas?” he said, and swayed a little.

“Jess,” he whispered, and smiled his first smile in a very, very long time as tears built in his eyes. “They took our machine. They destroyed it,” he found himself saying, even though it didn’t matter in the least, not right now. Odds were good that this was just another hallucination, anyway.

“Never mind. You can build another,” Jess said gently, then blinked rapidly as if he were trying to hold back tears of his own. “Let’s get you out of here.” He began to work the lock, then Khalila, angel that she was, gave him a ring of keys.

“From the last guard,” she said, then turned to shine a brilliant smile toward Thomas.

When Jess finally managed to unlock the door, he ran in and knelt on the floor beside him.

 _It’s a hallucination_ , he told himself. _A hallucination, nothing more._ But he couldn’t be rude.

He held out a hand. “It’s good to see you, Jess,” he managed to say while somehow keeping his composure, save for his voice cracking when he said his best friend’s name. “My God, I thought—I never thought you’d really come. I didn’t think any of you knew—they told me—” He had to stop, or he would break down sobbing. He waited for Jess’s hand to grip his, for the inevitable disappearance of all his friends when his mind realized there was nothing there to touch, nothing there at all.

Jess grabbed him in a rib-cracking hug, burying his face in Thomas’s shoulder, and Thomas held his breath to keep from crying out. He was real. They were alive. This was _real_.

When Jess had unlocked his shackles and pulled him out of the cell, he stopped and leaned against the bars, overcome by emotion.

“Thomas,” said Jess, “we can’t stop here. The Garda are coming, and they’ll put us _all_ in those cells. We have to go.”

“I know,” Thomas replied, and had to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment, hoping, praying this wasn’t all just an elaborate hallucination. “This isn’t an illusion, is it?” he asked Jess when he’d opened them again, when he’d found his voice again. “You’re here, this is real?” Hot tears poured from his eyes, catching in his beard.

“Yes,” Jess assured him. “It’s real.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess's POV - Thomas has a nightmare and PTSD episode in the Burner prison at Philadelphia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘He sat down on the floor to lean against his friend’s cot. “You alright?” he whispered softly enough that it wouldn’t wake Thomas if he were asleep, but he wasn’t at all surprised to get a reply.  
> “To be truthful, I’m glad you’re here, Jess.” He didn’t say the rest, but Jess could guess. Being trapped in a cell again, even surrounded by friends, wasn’t good for him. Thomas had endured torment in that dark hell underneath Rome. He’d survived unimaginable things, and it had taken a toll.  
> Jess wanted to ask, but he knew better. There was a gulf between what they could say, and what they would say. Best to keep things simple.  
> Thomas was fragile, raw inside and out, and the ugly truth of it was they needed him strong if they were going to survive Philadelphia.  
> Thomas said, “Would you stay there while I sleep a little?  
> Jess looked over his shoulder and saw that Thomas’s gaze had shifted to him. Neither of them looked away, and Jess finally said, “I’ll stand watch.”  
> It was, he thought, exactly what Thomas needed, and with a sigh, the big German closed his eyes and let himself finally drift away.  
> Jess fell asleep too, despite the hard stones under his behind, and the chill. He dreamed he was a guard at a gate, and the gate was on fire, and he knew, he knew that what waited beyond it was something terrible and monstrous, and impossible to defeat, but that he’d have to fight it anyway. The hopelessness of it overwhelmed him.’  
> -from Ash and Quill by Rachel Caine

** JESS **

_The Burner prison in Philadelphia_

Jess jerked awake at movement from behind him, and turned to kneel beside Thomas’s cot.

Thomas was talking in his sleep, mumbling streams of German, interspersed with whimpers and cries of “ _No! Please!_ ” He twitched and flinched, and his head moved from side to side, his brow furrowed over his tightly closed eyes.

“Thomas!” Jess said, shaking his shoulder. “Thomas, you’re alright, you’re safe!”

With a hoarse, pained shout, the big German sat bolt upright, breathing hard, and Jess stood.

“You’re okay,” he said, touching Thomas’s back.

Lightning fast, Thomas stood and grabbed Jess by the neck, shoving him against the cell wall. Jess couldn’t breathe.

“Thomas!” cried Khalila. “Thomas, don’t!”

“Guards!” Dario shouted, but Jess held a hand out to stop him.

With a blind, manic rage in his wide eyes, Thomas pulled Jess away from the wall, then shoved him back again; Jess’s head cracked hard enough against the stone that his vision went dim. He couldn’t breathe.

"You won't take me again!" he growled, and the wild sound of it sent a shiver through Jess even as he struggled to inhale.

“Thomas,” he forced through his friend’s grip on his throat, gently touching his friend’s tensed arm. “It’s me. It’s Jess. You’re okay.”

Thomas’s eyes seemed to clear, changing, morphing back to the kind blue eyes he knew; he began to breathe faster, and his grip loosened until Jess fell to the floor, coughing and sucking in lungfuls of sweet oxygen, waiting for the cell to stop spinning around him. His head throbbed, and he was reminded of the knock to the head he’d taken from the Spartan automaton just before they’d found Thomas in the Basilica Julia prison.

“I-I—” Thomas backed away, then tripped and fell backward onto the floor and scrambled back until his spine—all too prominent after his time in prison—hit the frame of his cot.

Jess inhaled a few more times, making sure he was steady, then pushed himself up and went to his friend, who was curled over his hands, rocking slightly and staring at them as if they were strange, monstrous things that didn’t belong to him.

“Thomas,” Jess said softly—softer, even, than he’d intended to say it, due to his raw throat.

Thomas still flinched.

Jess sank slowly down next to him. “It’s alright,” he said. “You’re safe—"

“They made me into a monster,” he whispered, and Jess noticed the tremors wracking his entire body. A tear fell onto his left palm.

“You’re not a monster.” Jess had no idea what to say, what to do; he glanced through the bars toward Wolfe, hoping for some advice, even just a hint, but Wolfe just pressed his lips together and shook his head.

“Oh, what do you know? You’re not even _real!_ ” Thomas snapped, voice harsher than Jess had ever heard it, harsher than he could even have imagined from the gentle, kind German.

“I’m real,” he said, and slowly, cautiously, reached out a hand. “You’re not there anymore, Thomas. We got you out.”

“A dream,” he said, rocking harder, sobbing now, and trembling like a leaf in a hurricane. “It was a dream. You’re just a hallucination.”

“Take my hand, Thomas,” he said. “I’m real. You’ll see.”

He shook his head. “You’ll disappear if I touch you,” he said, voice catching, “and—and I don’t want to be alone.”

“You’re not alone,” Khalila said softly from her cell. “We’re all here with you.”

He shook his head more, and harder, until finally he let out a roar like a wild animal and slammed his fists on the stone floor in front of him—hard enough to break bones, had it been anyone weaker than Thomas—then gripped his head so hard his knuckles and fingertips went paper-white as he sobbed.

Jess felt tears prick at his own eyes, and he looked around at the others, asking wordlessly for some kind of advice, any idea at all, some way to help his friend, because he was lost. But his friends all seemed as lost as he was, and now Wolf had turned his back and bowed his head.

Jess reached out a hesitant hand and gently, gently touched Thomas’s back.

His friend tensed, then sagged—not in relief, but in surrender. Jess didn’t know how he could tell, but he could. Thomas let go of his head and slowly put his hands behind his back, revealing eyes that stared, wide and shining, down at the floor in front of him, without seeming to see it; he sucked in a ragged breath, then another, and flinched even though nothing had happened. Then his hands curled in front of his chest, arms drawn in close to protect his body, and he rubbed his scabbed, scarred wrists as though they’d just been released from cuffs.

“ _Bitte_ ,” he finally whispered, his breaths speeding up. He flinched again, as if he’d been slapped. “ _Bitte,_ no more.” His breath hitched as if someone had hit him in the stomach, and he stopped breathing altogether for several long seconds, then began to gasp, faster and faster, faster and faster, until his exhales came out as wild shrieks of pain.

“Thomas,” said Jess, but his voice didn’t work. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Thomas, you’re alright. You’re here with us. They’re not hurting you anymore.” Horrified tears ran unhindered down his own cheeks, but he barely noticed. “They won’t ever get to you again, I swear it. I’ll kill every last one of them before I let them take you again.”

Thomas let out a tortured howl that morphed into a string of gut-wrenching sobs, and finally fell sideways, away from Jess, to the stone floor, as if he couldn’t hold himself up any longer.

“What’s going on here?” said a gruff, unfamiliar voice, and Jess looked up to see two guards outside the bars of their cell.

“Nothing,” said Jess, even though it was clearly a lie. “Just leave.”

“Does he need a doctor?”

“No!” Jess couldn’t imagine what Thomas might do if a stranger tried to touch him in his state. He’d already almost killed Jess. “Just leave. He’ll be alright.”

They conferred quietly for a moment and then, slowly, they backed away and left, locking the heavy prison door behind them. He hoped they’d listen, because the alternative wasn’t likely to end well for any of them.

Jess moved to sit cross-legged before Thomas, whose eyes were still open and unseeing; he looked as if he’d given up completely, as if he would stop moving, stop breathing, and the life would drain out of him and into the rough stone floor.

Behind him, he heard Khalila quietly weeping.

“Thomas,” he said softly, and reached for his friend’s hands; they were curled against his chest as he lay there in the fetal position, trembling, and when their fingers touched, Thomas flinched badly, but Jess persisted and grasped one of Thomas’s hands in both of his, massaging it gently until the muscles began to relax.

“You’re safe,” he said softly, though he didn’t know how true that was—they _were_ in a Burner prison, after all. “You’re going to be alright. I’m here with you. We all are.”

The German’s blue eyes began to clear, then flooded with tears. At long, long last, he looked up at Jess.

“Jess,” he said, his voice breaking. “ _Jess_.”

Jess helped him sit up, then moved to sit beside him, their backs against his cot, and slowly wrapped his arm around Thomas’s slumped shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas whispered. “I’m so sorry, Jess, I— _Scheiße._ ” He gazed at his violently trembling hands as if they didn’t belong to him. “They turned me into a mon—”

“You’re not a monster,” Jess interrupted him, blotting his own tears with the sleeve on his free arm. “I don’t want to hear you saying that about yourself ever again, do you hear me? You’re a human being, and damn well the best one I know. None of what happened to you was your fault, and it didn’t make you a monster. You could never be a bloody monster, alright?”

Thomas drew a deep, unsteady breath, then nodded and leaned against him, his strength sapped. “Thank you, Jess.” He yawned.

“You need sleep,” Jess told him. “You can’t heal from it all without rest.”

“Yes, but—“ Thomas gestured weakly with one hand; it still trembled. “Well, you saw.”

“I’ll stand watch,” Jess promised. “I’ll wake you at the first sign of trouble, alright?”

“Perhaps you should tie me to the bed,” he suggested, though it sounded as if that were the last thing he could ever want.

“I’m not tying you to the bed,” Jess told him. “Don’t worry, I’m better prepared now. You won’t get the drop on me again.” He tried to smile, but it was a good thing Thomas wasn’t looking at him, because he felt it twisting into a pained grimace. His voice was softer as he said, “Come on, Thomas. Please. I’ll be right here.”

Thomas sucked in a deep breath, let it out in a long, shaky sigh, then nodded. “You’ll stand watch?”

“I’ll stand watch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading the first fanfic I've ever written! I hope it was enjoyable.


End file.
